Fade In Active
The professional one-time-purchase alternative to Final Draft.
At a glance
- Maker
- Kent Tessman (independent)
- First release
- 2011
- Status
- Active — still developed and sold
- Platforms
- Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
- Pricing
- $79.95 one-time (free demo)
- Native format
- Fade In (.fadein)
What it is
Fade In does essentially everything the industry standard does — professional pagination, revisions, dual dialogue, reports — as a one-time purchase from a single independent developer. Its .fadein files wrap open XML, so scripts stay portable.
What people are saying
The good
Value is the headline: the full professional feature set for a one-time $79.95, repeatedly called the best price-to-performance in screenwriting. Users describe it as stable for years at a stretch and more intuitive than Final Draft, and the solo developer’s fast, personal support is praised across a decade of forum threads.
The bad
It is not the industry standard, so some writers worry about friction exchanging files with contacts locked into Final Draft. A minority find it buggier than its fans claim, novels and stage plays are afterthoughts next to screenplays, and buying from a one-person company makes a few buyers hesitate.
Paraphrased consensus from user reviews, forums and retrospective coverage across the web.
Where it came from
Released in 2011 by filmmaker-developer Kent Tessman as a rebellion against subscriptions and lock-in; testimonials on its homepage come from Rian Johnson and Craig Mazin. Tessman is also a Fountain co-contributor, and Fade In even reverse-engineered a Final Draft binary (.fdr) importer.
Worth knowing
Trelby, a rival open-source app, imports Fade In files — rare cross-app courtesy in this niche.
Getting scripts in and out
Imports: Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain), Final Draft FDR (.fdr)
Exports: Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain), PDF (.pdf)